This book is a collection and reworking of research done by Pascal Salin since around 1990. Salin is an economist in the tradition of the Austrian school of economics. He emphasizes the centrality of individual choice in an uncertain world in which individual actions interact to produce spontaneous orders. But he is no mere conduit of established ideas. He also offers his own highly original insights honed after a lifetime as an economist, one who has earned the respect in which (...) he is now held by his peers worldwide. The book makes delightful reading. Salin covers a lot of ground in this book, mostly within the topics indicated by the title, though in the final two chapters he goes beyond these and into the foundations of economic science. The book is divided into five parts: (1) firms, markets and competition, (2) globalization and international economic problems, (3) monetary integration, (4) money, finance and economic policies, and (5) foundations of economic theory. (shrink)

Michael Lewin geht es in seinem Buch um die Vernunft als ein wohlbegründetes und in zeitgenössischen Kontexten fortführbares Forschungsprogramm. Dabei handelt es sich um eine Theorienreihe zu vielfältigen Arten und Funktionen der Ideen, mit deren Hilfe die Vernunft das Verstehen und Wollen steuert und selbstreflexiv wird. Dazu entwickelt der Autor unter dem Stichpunkt „reflektierter Perspektivismus“ das Programm einer perspektivistischen Metaphilosophie, die den Hintergrundparametern forschungsprogrammatische Festlegungen (in Anlehnung an Imre Lakatos), Ansprüche und (Wissens-)Ziele hinter den philosophischen Positionierungen nachspürt und dadurch (...) ihre Grenzen und Möglichkeiten offenlegt. (shrink)

Metaphilosophy is often understood as an inquiry into the nature, goals, and methods of philosophy and is sometimes construed as an epistemology of philosophy. Moral questions concerning philosophical practice, however, are no less important and constitute a distinctive field that may be called 'moral philosophy of philosophy' or 'moral metaphilosophy'. This article maps the field by identifying, addressing, and classifying various forms of moral transgressions in, against, and through philosophy. Hermeneutical rational injustices include the devaluation, discrediting, misrepresentation, and non-objective critique (...) within philosophical discourse. Violations within academic philosophical practice encompass such phenomena as intellectual theft; gatekeeping; academic cliques; scholarly neglect; discrimination and favoritism; prestige bias, excellence bias, and other forms of bias oriented toward perceived institutional, professional, evaluative, or symbolic "topness"; unfair peer review; problematic evaluation criteria and rankings; abuses of power; unjust distributions of resources; and the inversion of virtues into vices. External injustices and transgressions concern the public discrediting of philosophy, violence against philosophers, the problematic relation between philosophy and politics, and the impact of extra-academic vices on philosophy. Bringing these issues to light, thereby underscoring the importance of moral metaphilosophy, can help protect philosophers from various forms of harm inflicted by themselves, colleagues, institutions, and other actors across academic and non-academic contexts, thereby rendering philosophical practice fairer and more worthwhile. (shrink)

For Kant, philosophical investigations are inherently analytic. The proper method of philosophy is analysis, and the object of analysis are concepts. Hence, Kant’s short description of philosophy as “rational cognition […] from concepts” (KrV, A 837/B 865) can be substituted by “philosophy is conceptual analysis”. The article shows that Kant follows a representationalism about concepts and a combination of intensional and extensional feature semantics. Against the claim that Kant is a proponent of the concept-judgement-inversion, it is argued that concepts are (...) being articulated in form of singular terms, propositions, and sets of propositions alike. Kant interlinks different kinds of concepts with different kinds of definitions, as the reconstruction of his theory of definitions reveals. Philosophy foremost deals with what Kant calls “given” empirical and pure concepts. Such concepts are object of analysis, i.e., explication and exposition. The article ends with answers to five possible objections. Is philosophy all about analysis? (shrink)

Recent research gives perspectivism the status of a stand-alone epistemological research program. As part of this development, perspectivism must be distinguished from other epistemologies, especially relativism. Not only do relativists and perspectivists use a similar vocabulary, but even the supposed tenets (features of the doctrine) seem partially to overlap. To clarify the relation between these programs, I suggest drawing two important distinctions. The first is between the (1) terminological and (2) doctrinal components of epistemologies; the second is between the (2a) (...) analytic and (2b) synthetic doctrinal components. The method of originalistic linguistic analysis that I introduce in this article shows that both relativism and perspectivism use the same matrix of interconnected linguistic expressions belonging to what I call the universal epistemic language. Furthermore, this method reveals which doctrinal components necessarily follow from this linguistic basis and from the terms ‘relativism’ and ‘perspectivism’, and which are a result of deliberate philosophical constructions. With respect to their linguistic basis and analytic doctrinal components, relativism and perspectivism are best seen not as distinct epistemologies but as complementary partial heuristics within a single overarching general epistemology. Doctrinal additions that transform the original meaning of the terms ‘relativism’ and ‘perspectivism’, such as ‘indifferentism’ and ‘non-absolutism’, should always be explicitly mentioned to avoid confusion and straw-man debates in philosophy. (shrink)

The article explores different ways in which the term ‘metaphilosophy’ or ‘philosophy of philosophy’ can be applied in the context of Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre. It is argued that despite the terminological differences partially caused by Fichte’s renaming of philosophy and the unclear meaning of ‘metaphilosophy,’ several options are available. The article suggests considering metaphilosophy as one of the many ‘meta-constructions’—such as the thinking of thinking, philosophizing about the philosophizing, and the metaphysics of metaphysics—that can be found throughout the history of philosophy (...) and in Fichte’s thought. They follow the figure of self-application, which is compatible with historical and contemporary translations of ‘meta’ as after, beyond, and about. The available options are the Wissenschaftslehre of philosophy, understood as the revision of philosophy and thematization of deficient or incomplete conceptions of philosophy from the standpoint of the Wissenschaftslehre; the Wissenschaftslehre of the Wissenschaftslehre as the propaedeutic self-reflection, successive reformulation, and picture that emerges with the completion of the system; and philosophy of the Wissenschaftslehre. The latter, the external view of Wissenschaftslehre as one philosophy among others, is almost not present in Fichte. However, it connects Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre with contemporary metaphilosophy, as demonstrated by Rescher’s topics, benefiting both Fichte scholars and contemporary metaphilosophers. (shrink)

Kraus's 'Kant's Ideas of Reason' offers a 'perspectivalist interpretation' of a part of the Transcendental Dialectic. I will focus on two central topics: the concept of ideas and the concept of reason. First, I argue that Kraus's reconstruction of the concept of ideas requires significant refinement. Despite what the title of her work might suggest, her analysis is limited to transcendental ideas without engaging with Kant's broader typology, which includes at least seven distinct types of ideas. Greater attention to the (...) fundamental features of the concept of ideas, as well as to the relevant scholarship, could help avoid the introduction of the problematic 'isms' 'noumenalism' and 'fictionalism'. Second, I highlight that Kraus does not clearly distinguish between reason in its broader and narrower senses, nor does she provide a precise definition of reason in the narrower sense. I propose modifying the 'perspectivalist interpretation' in accordance with my suggestions. (shrink)

Der Aufsatz behandelt, teilweise mit Rückgriff auf Werner Stegmaiers Philosophie der Orientierung, drei ausgewählte Themen, die für die Orientierung in der Philosophie relevant sind: Forschungsautonomie, epistemische Situiertheit und philosophische Terminologie.

Philosophy traditionally deals with such lexicalized concepts as WISDOM, VIRTUE, REASON, WORLD VIEW, INFINITE UNIVERSE, and PHILOSOPHY. They trigger interest in philosophy particularly because they are hard to understand and explain. It is all the more surprising that many contemporary philosophers focus on such concepts as DOG, CHAIR, and FLIGHT to build their theories and provide examples. The article argues that to preserve topical equilibrium and avoid methodological problems, both classes of concepts should be involved in philosophical theorization and exemplification. (...) The first part critically discusses attempts at identifying these classes as ordinary vs. big (Gauker), empirical vs. pure (Kant), and concrete vs. abstract (contemporary psycholinguistics). It introduces the opposite pair simple empirical vs. complex demanding concepts as an alternative heuristic tool to evaluate concepts. The second part elaborates on the concept of concept and structural similarities between the two classes of concepts in semantic and 'onomantic' perspectives. The third part shows that despite structural similarities, such factors as the availability of empirical data, identification of the referent, historical and theoretical loadedness, complexity, and demandingness indicate that simple empirical and complex demanding concepts should be addressed in different ways. The final part elaborates on the notion of topical equilibrium as a philosophical method and norm and discusses two further examples (COW and ARTHRITIS) from contemporary debates in conceptual engineering. (shrink)

I argue that Kant has developed a broad systematic account of the architectonic functionality of pure reason that can be used and advanced in contemporary contexts. Reason, in the narrow sense, is responsible for the picture of a well-ordered universe of science consisting of architectonic ideas of science, sciences and parts of sciences. In the first section (I), I show what Kant means by the architectonic ideas by explaining and interrelating the concepts of (a) the faculty of reason, (b) ideas (...) (as principles), (c) method, and (d) sciences of reason. Thereafter (II), I think through his holistic understanding of science and scientific progress and suggest differentiating between four levels of use of architectonic ideas, drawing on the metaphor of a well-structured universe as imagined by Kant in his work on the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. I also claim that each possible idea of reason can be (apart from its primary function) additionally regarded as a fourth-level architectonic concept when explicitly conceived as an object of (e. g. philosophical) studies, i. e. from a mere methodological perspective. In the final section (III), I unveil the potential of Kant’s theory by pointing out how this architectonic methodological function of pure reason is tacitly used in Karl-Otto Apel’s contemporary philosophical research programme. You can get the official version of the paper and the whole issue (open access) by clicking on the attached link. (shrink)

Philosophers conceptualize a lot, generate, analyze, and engineer concepts. They often either equate ‘words’ and ‘concepts’ or consider words only as means of expression of their ‘concepts’. I suggest that philosophers should learn to distinguish between ‘words’ and ‘concepts’. Philosophers’ terms are often incompatible or partially incompatible with philosophers’ ‘concepts’. Examples are ‘isms’ in philosophy and the conception of reason. If ‘talking about the same matter’ is a prerequisite for fruitful philosophical debates, words and their analysis should have at least (...) some limiting and guiding power over concepts. (shrink)

Transcendental philosophy was not born like Athena out of Zeus’s head, mature and in full armour from the very beginning. That is why in both prefaces to the Critique of Pure Reason (1781 and 1787) Kant introduces the concept of transcendental philosophy as an “idea.” The idea understood architectonically develops slowly and only gradually acquires a definite form. As witnessed by the works of Kant himself and of his predecessors and followers, the idea of transcendental philosophy has undergone a series (...) of changes and adjustments compared to the initial plan. In this context, my goal is not simply exegesis and historical investigation of transcendental philosophy, but also to look at it from a systematic and methodological perspective. I examine the concept of transcendental philosophy from the viewpoint of programmatic metaphilosophy. The first part discusses programmatics as a distinct subsection of metaphilosophy. I argue that Kant’s architectonic methodology and the methodology of Lakatos can be used to understand the inception, development and degradation of philosophical systems. In the second part I look at the project of transcendental philosophy and the stages of its development from the standpoint of architectonics. The third part shows that Lakatos’s methodology can provide a detailed insight into the elements of transcendental philosophy, a clear idea of its logic and identify the component parts that can be improved and developed. In spite of the different levels of detailing and epistemological prerequisites, the methodologies of Kant and Lakatos can be combined to achieve a metaphilosophically informed and progressive understanding of philosophical projects. (shrink)

This chapter examines the relationship between language and thought in Kant and contemporary philosophy. It argues that Kant, despite his substantive contributions to the philosophy of language, would not have followed the linguistic turn in philosophy. The reasons for this are twofold: firstly, the sharp distinction between words and concepts, as well as between ‘nominal’ and ‘real’ concepts; secondly, the view that philosophical inquiries are genuinely directed at ‘concepts of things’ rather than at ‘concepts of words.’ The first section analyses (...) the word-concept distinction in Kant. The following section examines the conflation of words and concepts in both everyday and professional philosophical language, as well as Kant’s possible response. The next part is dedicated to the problem of conceptual and topical discontinuity as well as the distinction between words, concepts, and conceptions from both contemporary and Kantian points of view. Finally, the concluding section offers an alternative perspective on the significance of words and continuity in philosophy. (shrink)

How surprising is the insight, that being equals I in the 15th lecture of the Doctrine of Science 1804/II? It might have been indeed an unexpected turn for his contemporaries in Berlin listening to Fichte for the first time, but should it be surprising for us, having at least since 2012 (the year the last volume of [Gesamtausgabe] appeared) access to all his published and unpublished works? I want to propose a way of reading Fichte, which bypasses two popular and (...) contradictory interpretations of his philosophy in the post-Jena period: (a) the Absolute is the new first principle (hence the I is just a shadow of the much higher being) and (b) his system basically remains unchanged (hence the being is nothing more than the I). At first, I analyze the functions of later Fichte’s improved version of the Kantian and Reinholdian abstract subject-object-symbolism and assign specific content to it. This will shed light on the structure and the first principle of the Doctrine of Science 1804/II. In the second section I give reasons why Fichte calls both God and I “absolute” and “pure being” and explain their relation to each other referring to a thought experiment sometimes used by Kant—an analogy between the divine and human (pure) reason. The analogical thinking of this kind remains within the borders of transcendental philosophy as long as it is used only for certain didactic purposes. (shrink)

Statements about philosophy in the history of philosophy and in recent metaphilosophical debates are dependent on first-order philosophical commitments and backgrounds, which poses both a threat and a chance for metaphilosophy as a discipline. The article aims at providing a current picture of metaphilosophy and its possible future design. It explores the problem of first-order philosophical preconceptions in metaphilosophy and suggests a strategy for the further disciplinary development of metaphilosophy. At first, it points at the problem via analysis of Camus’, (...) Husserl’s, and Carnap’s implicit and Rescher’s, Williamson’s, and Fraisopi’s explicit metaphilosophical views. Neither a universal account of philosophy nor a neutral metaphilosophy are in sight. Nevertheless, as the article shows next, a descriptive perspective on existing contributions reveals certain continuity and disciplinary structure in metaphilosophy regarding its subject, placement, and existing topics. A complementary normative perspective that demands philosophy-oriented metaphilosophy focusing on inclusivity and universality can lead to more effective discourse formations, problem-solving, and knowledge maximization in this discipline. (shrink)

Fichte’s first principle is commonly understood as the absolute or self-positing I. Although this interpretation is not incorrect, it captures only a partial truth. The I that posits itself is intrinsically related to reason: the I is itself reason, and self-positing is the essence and original act of reason. This article argues that only a reason-contextual reading of the first principle reveals its full significance. The argument unfolds in two parts. The first examines a corpus of passages in which Fichte (...) employs the term ‘reason’ and the conceptual frameworks that underlie it. The second addresses three questions arising from this analysis: whether the I is identical with reason; whether Fichte proposes a model that redefines the relation between reason and the I beyond Kant’s; and what strategies can be developed to sustain the reason-contextual reading. (shrink)

Since Nietzsche, the term “perspectivism” has been used as the name for an ill-defined epistemological position. Some have tried to find an adequate meaning for the word “perspectivism,” tacitly investing it with a set of different predicates, such as “the dependence of cognition on position,” “pluralism,” “anti-universalism,” “epistemic humility,” etc. This approach is related to two contestable attitudes: the monolateral linguistic paradigm and the metaepistemological position of multiplicity of incompatible epistemological programs. The monolateral linguistic paradigm proceeds from the assumption that (...) there is no obligatory connection between word and meaning. This makes it possible to denote logical content by any possible sign, and to explicate the sign in any number of ways. The metaepistemological position of multiplicity of incompatible epistemological programs encourages the support of artificial antagonism in the theory of cognition and the creation of “new” positions with different denotations. These attitudes can be contrasted with the method of empirical “originalist” analysis within the bilateral paradigm, as well as the theory of one epistemology and universal epistemic language. The content of the term “perspectivism” can be reconstructed by analyzing the original meanings of its individual constituent morphemes and their combination. The extremely precise and empirically provable definition of the word “perspectivism” is “the tendency to act by seeing through something”. This points to the problem of the impossibility of analytically deducing from it “the dependence of cognition on position,” “pluralism,” and other predicates. The same problem of inconsistency between the name of the epistemological position and its content is also encountered, for example, in the literature on relativism. It freely attributes a set of doctrinal beliefs to the term “relativism” without explicit linguistic signification of the predicates and blurs the difference between perspectivism and relativism. This points to the inexpediency of constructing epistemological positions on the basis of words denoting one of all possible interrelated cognitive actions, and the need to rethink epistemological practice. (shrink)

Over the last two decades there has been a growing interest in the transcendental dialectic of Critique of Pure Reason in Germany. Authors, however, often do not pay enough attention to the fact that Kant’s theory of reason (in the narrow sense) and the concept of ideas derived from it is not limited to this text. The purpose of this article is to compare and analyze the functionality of mind as a subjective ability developed by Kant and Fichte with the (...) Hegelian expansion of the mind to the idea of universal rationality. The relevance of such a comparison is connected with the need to demonstrate how the Hegelian paradigm of absolute rationality causes either the subsequent rejection of reason as a philosophical principle in the 19th and´20th centuries counter-discourse, or reduction of reason to the concept of pragmatic rationality. In the first part of this paper, the author intends to differentiate between at least 7 different types of ideas and their functions in Kant’s works. In the second part, he demonstrates how Fichte tries to systematize them beginning with reason, which at first creates an idea of itself. Special attention is paid to the way that Fichte categorizes them with the help of 5 spheres of action or 5 worldviews. The third and final part of the article discusses how Hegel goes beyond the frame of the transcendental philosophy of consciousness using different demands linked to the concepts of “reason” and “ideas”. Although these requirements are not found in Kant and Fichte, they entail a set of difficulties, which the author considers in conclusion. The author’s interpretation of the theory of ideas and their functions in Kant, Fichte and Hegel demonstrates the dynamic character of the theories of reason in classical German philosophy, as well as the relevance of the 7 types of ideas that retain their significance for philosophy of the 21st century. Keywords: Kant and German idealism, types of ideas, functions of reason, worldviews, the problem of different demands. В Германии на протяжении последних двух десятилетий возрос интерес к трансцендентальной диалектике «Критики чистого разума». Однако авторы часто не обращают внимания на то, что кантовская теория разума (в узком смысле), в которой разворачивается работа с идеями, не ограничивается этим текстом. Целью данной статьи является сравнительный анализ разработанной Кантом и Фихте функциональности разума как субъективной способности с гегелевским расширением разума до идеи всеобщей разумности. Актуальность такого сравнения связана с необходимостью продемонстрировать то, каким образом гегелевская парадигма абсолютной разумности вызывает либо последующий отказ от разума как философского принципа в контрдискурсе XIX–XX вв., либо редукцию разума к понятию прагматической рациональности. В первой части данной статьи вводится различение по меньшей мере семи различных видов идей и связанных с ними функций в философии Канта. Во второй части демонстрируется попытка Фихте их систематизировать исходя из утверждения том, что разум должен сначала создать идею о самом себе. Проанализировано также предложенное Фихте распределение идей на пять сфер действенности или типов мировоззрения. В третьей, итоговой части статьи рассмотрен выход гегелевской мысли за рамки трансцендентальной философии сознания. Автор статьи связывает этот процесс с выдвижением не осуществимых в контексте философии Канта и Фихте требований к понятиям «разум» и «идея» и анализирует ряд сложностей, вызванных этими требованиями. Таким образом, интерпретация учения об идеях и их функциях у Канта, Фихте и Гегеля демонстрирует динамический характер теорий разума в классической немецкой философии и актуальность семи видов идей, которые сохраняют свое значение для философии XXI в. Ключевые слова: Кант и немецкий идеализм, виды идей, функции разума, мировоззрение, проблема различных требований. (shrink)

I advocate for the 'strong view of etymology' and emphasize the value of education in fostering terminological and linguistic competence.

Das Forschungsprogramm des reflektierten Perspektivismus untersucht die Perspektivität des Erkennens, der Sprache und der Theoriebildung. Es beruht auf der Auffassung, dass Wahrnehmen, Denken, Wollen, Fühlen, Entscheiden und Handeln perspektivisch verfasst sind, und entwickelt daraus begriffliche, methodologische und normative Konsequenzen. Im Zentrum stehen die perspektivische Grundstruktur des Erkennens, die Perspektivität der Sprache sowie die Bedingungen eines reflektierten Umgangs mit Perspektivität. In metaphilosophischer Hinsicht untersucht das Programm die Perspektivität philosophischer und (meta-)metaphilosophischer Forschung, die ethischen Fragen eines rational gerechten und ungerechten Umgangs mit (...) Perspektivität in der Philosophie, die Perspektivität philosophischer Termini und Begriffe sowie Freiheit und Vollständigkeit von Perspektiven. Der Beitrag skizziert den gegenwärtigen Stand des Forschungsprogramms und seine metaphilosophischen Anwendungen. (shrink)

In recent decades, perspectivism has developed into an independent epistemological research program. Perspectivism is based on the idea that a perspective, as an attempt to get insight into an object, depends on a multitude of factors. Perspectivists are concerned with reconstructing and explaining these factors as well as identifying the conditions of epistemic acts using such concepts as “position” / “point of view,” “view,” “angle,” “horizon,” “focus,” “picture,” “relativity,” and “context”. Although these concepts are part of the perspectivist’s toolkit, their (...) content and interrelationship have not yet been critically and comprehensively analyzed. The article aims to clarify the conceptual basis of perspectivism as an epistemological program, building on previous efforts of F. Kaulbach (1990) and W. Stegmaier (2008). It will conduct a systematic conceptual analysis and present the logical content of perspectivist notions, integrating them into a single coherent model to serve as perspectivism’s conceptual foundation. Perspectivist concepts form a “population” or matrix of the concept “epistemic situation”. When coherently articulated and organized within a conceptual model, they can serve as a tool for nuanced analysis of epistemic situations and their outcomes (theories, positions, views, etc.). The article’s final section will highlight significant implications of this new, programmatic understanding of perspectivism: the status of perspectivist concepts, how perspectivism distinguishes itself from related epistemological programs, and challenges for its continued development. (shrink)

In the later Fichte the reflection splits the world into a fivefoldness of its possible view. To get through all the a priori arranged levels from sensuality to the Doctrine of Science means to use up all the possibilities of the views of the world. I will examine whether Fichte can offer us a direct proof of completeness of the standpoints or at least show indirectly that there must be exactly five of them. Which answer would he give us if (...) we argued that history, skepticism and nonentity could complement the array? -/- Keywords Fivefoldness-worldviews-completeness-proof-history-skepticism -/- Die Reflexion spaltet nach Fichte die Welt in eine Fünffachheit ihrer möglichen Ansicht. Das Durchlaufen der a priori geordneten Stufen von der Sinnlichkeit bis zur Wissenschaftslehre stellt zugleich ein Ausschöpfen der Möglichkeiten dar, sich zur Welt zu verhalten. Ich werde prüfen, ob Fichte uns einen direkten Beweis der Vollständigkeit der Standpunkte geben oder zumindest indirekt dafür argumentieren kann, dass es genau fünf sein müssen. Was würde er uns antworten, wenn wir behaupteten, die Geschichte, der Skeptizismus und die Nullität könnten die Reihe ergänzen? -/- Schlüsselbegriffe Fünffachheit-Weltansichten-Vollständigkeit-Beweis-Geschichte-Skeptizismus. (shrink)

In recent decades, perspectivism has developed into an epistemological research program claiming its independence. This autonomy stems from Perspectivism’s potential ability to resolve the contradictions between realist and constructivist programs. Perspectivism is based on the idea that the object depends on perspective, which constitutes any subjective attempt to cognize it. Perspectivists reconstruct and explain the factors involved in the formation of perspective, identifying the conditionality of epistemic acts, using concepts such as “position”, “point of view”, “view”, “angle”, “horizon”, “focus”, “picture”, (...) “context”, “aspect”, etc. Although these concepts are part of the perspectivist’s toolkit, their meanings and interrelation have so far been taken for granted and have not yet been critically and comprehensively analyzed. The purpose of this article is to take steps toward clarifying the conceptual basis for defending perspectivism as an epistemological program. Once consistently uncovered and correlated in a conceptual model, Perspectivist concepts can be used as a tool for a detailed analysis of theories, positions, and beliefs. The article begins with a preliminary description of the concept of perspectivism and its brief history as an epistemological program. In particular, the first modern attempts to outline perspectivist epistemology are described in the works of F. Kaulbach (1990), W. Stegmaier (2008), and M. Massimi (2017, 2020). The problem of identifying the special a priori status of perspectivist notions as a strategy for justifying the autonomy of Perspectivism is then posed. A method for demonstrating such a status, based on Kant’s transcendentalism and P. Strawson’s descriptive metaphysics, is then suggested. (shrink)

For Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, secondary literature on Kant, Fichte, and Hegel is not philosophy in the proper sense. It is best to think the relation between the history of philosophy, philosophy, and its future in terms of a set of virtues that should be binding both for the historians of philosophy and philosophers.

One of the great attractions of Thomas Reid's account of knowledge is that he attempted to avoid the alternative between skepticism and dogmatism. This attempt, however, faces serious problems. It is argued here that there is a pragmatist way out of the problems, and that there are even hints to this solution in Reid's writings.

[The review is in German] Theunissen has developed an interesting account of metaphilosophy that–as a discipline–does not start in 1960s, but already and especially with Kant, Fichte and Hegel. The constant growth of philosophical theories around 1800 (what Koselleck called “Sattelzeit”) made metaphilosophical constructions necessary. He reads–and is not the first author who does so–Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit as a metaphilosophical theory. Although I like and share many ideas with Theunissen, there are three objections that I raise in my review: (...) (i) His account of isosthenia as a basic problem behind all philosophical positions (which makes metaphilosophy necessary) undermines the importance of dissent, dogmatism and intra-philosophical struggles; (ii) Theunissen’s understanding of metaphilosophy is not neutral (just as any account of metaphilosophy): it is predetermined by Hegel’s thought and the author’s understanding of Phenomenology of Spirit; (iii) Therefore, it fits well to this particular work of Hegel, but not (a) to the overall system of Encyclopedia and (b) Kant’s metaphilosophical deliberations (which Theunissen misses). I end the review with the statement that we need to ask ourselves how metaphilosophy is possible as a unified discipline despite of different philosophical backgrounds of authors–we need a meta-metaphilosophy or a critique of metaphilosophical reason. (shrink)

Eine Untersuchung zu Nietzsches Kritik am Deutschen Idealismus im Rahmen seiner allgemeinen Idealismuskritik und seiner Lehre vom Willen zur Macht.

This paper explores an expanded perspective on the relationship between photons and the photographic process through various articulations in the field of optics and photonics. This framework will illuminate a more thorough explanation of processes that formalize a "register" as interpreted in Dawn M. Wilson's essay "Invisible Images and Indeterminacy: Why We Need a Multi-stage Account of Photography", and in general, a more complete understanding of image-data acquisition-sequences. Central to this examination is electromagnetic energy (photons of light), and where I (...) introduce Light-energy indices, the variables associated with spatial and temporal frequencies, and optical radiances as representing and vectoring characteristic features of the photographed subject through space. In this sense then, determinate - global (general shape and lines) and distinctive (textures and fine detail) features - are the constituents that optically inscribe a register, thus proposing that a register is more akin to a blueprint - inscribing various indices that need some type of rendering process to reveal a depiction of the exposed subject. This is opposed to contemporary orthodoxy championing the so-called "latent image" - the false-referent paradigm that a fully realized pictorial representation of the subject hides on a register after exposure, and a mainstay Wilson argues in her work and is widely contemplated elsewhere (Wilson 2021; Wilson 2022; Wilson 2023; Lopes 2016; Windsor 2023). Ultimately, this paper proposes an explicit causal link between the subject that is framed before the lens, and what I interpret as Inscribed Structured Patterns of information that embody a register – that will be argued – establishes a more scientifically and philosophically accurate referent identifying a register – that is addressed in the last section of the essay. (shrink)

The book (I) deals systematically with a conception of reason that creates and deploys ‘ideas’ as pure representations of something that is not or only partially given in experience. This conception—developed in Kant’s Transcendental Dialectic, unfolded throughout his works and set as the highest point in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre—is the most important key to understanding transcendental philosophy and classical German philosophy. Moreover, the book (II) argues that the set of theories regarding reason ‘in the narrower sense’ (the faculty of ideas) constitutes (...) a research program that can be developed further and compete / cooperate with alternate projects (theories of rationality and reasonability) in contemporary contexts; it can also be successfully defended against Pyrrhonical objections and the post-idealistic critique of reason. (shrink)

The frequent use of the term ‘metaphilosophy’ and the corresponding research in the 1960s may lead to the conclusion that there has been a development of a new discipline, a formation of a new kind of philosophical discourse. Such questions as, “What is philosophy?”, “What kind of questions does philosophy ask?”, “Which methods does it adopt to answer them?” and “Is there progress in philosophy?” are put at the center of attention. They constitute a separate research field. Just as the (...) laws of logic, nature and natural sciences, epistemology, morals, freedom and law, philosophy is one of its own normal topics. Several sources of the need for metaphilosophy can be named, such as the re-orientation in philosophy due to its diversity and possible dissent within itself, justification of philosophy and its relevance against the backdrop of the progress in sciences, or the re-evaluation of a research tradition, such as analytic philosophy or phenomenology. The overall goal of metaphilosophy could be understood as the development of theoretical means for a better understanding of philosophy and for a better philosophical practice. (shrink)

This brief examines the ontological shift in photography caused by the transition from the absolute qualities inherent in a tangible film negative to the mutable digital RAW image file born from the womb of the digital photography revolution. Though the film negative and RAW image file, in general, serve as a causal history of the exposed subject, their ontological paths diverge markedly: traditional chemical development of the registered subject yields a film negative whose foundational architectural features remain absolute. In contrast, (...) the digital format allows for the effortless generation of endless, mutable clone variants from a single RAW image file. That is, the digital photographic “register” (Wilson 2021) can be manipulated to alter the inscribed features of the exposed subject. This modern-day capacity to infinitely rearrange and engineer foundational characteristics inscribed on a register alters the ontology of the photographic print, shifting the medium away from the structural veracity associated with the negative toward the boundless realm of traditional graphic illustration. (shrink)

Durand of St.-Pourçain holds that a mind (human or angelic) does not need representations or species in order to think about the world outside it. Quite the contrary, a mind can think about present things provided there are no impediments between it and those things, and whereas there are impediments that stand between embodied minds and present things outside them, there are no such impediments between angelic minds and things outside them. However, Durand’s anti-representationalism has its limits. One problem it (...) would seem to face is what I will call the problem of the past. How does a mind think about something that is not present to it, including, of course, past things? How does the mind — human or angelic — remember? Peter of Palude raises this as a problem for Durand’s account of angelic thought. I argue that Durand’s answer is surprising: there is a sense in which past things are really present to angelic minds. The text I use to defend my reading occurs only in one version of Durand’s discussion of angelic knowledge of future contingents. Hence, I will first go over Durand’s theory about angelic knowledge of future things. I will then present Palude’s objection from the past, and what I take Durand’s answer to it to be. I will close with a few words about whether past things are also somehow really present to human minds as well. (shrink)

Peter Ludlow shows how word meanings are much more dynamic than we might have supposed, and explores how they are modulated even during everyday conversation. The resulting view is radical, and has far-reaching consequences for our political and legal discourse, and for enduring puzzles in the foundations of semantics, epistemology, and logic.

Blurb “Not that the image represents the self, but that the self comes into being only where it is shaped, formatted, framed, and admitted into the world-picture.” Synopsis: The Shapes of the Self – Final Part of the Mirror Selves Trilogy The Shapes of the Self: Identity and Recognition in Visual Space is the final volume of Peter Ayolov’s Mirror Selves Trilogy, following Identity Industrial Complex and Copyrighting the Self. Together, the three books form a systematic exploration of how (...) the human self has been transformed in the age of digital capitalism, visual media, and algorithmic governance. If the first volume analyzed the economic production of identity as image, and the second examined the legal codification of likeness as property, this concluding work addresses the deepest question: what kind of self remains when the world itself has become image? The central thesis of The Shapes of the Self is radical in its simplicity: the image no longer represents the self; the self appears only insofar as it is formatted within the world-picture. In contemporary visual space, identity is not expressed and then captured; it is pre-structured by the infrastructures that enable visibility. The book argues that we have entered an epoch in which the world is no longer something depicted by images but is already organized as image. This transformation reshapes subjectivity at its core. Drawing on philosophical traditions from Plato to Heidegger, as well as on avant-garde art, media theory, and contemporary image science, Ayolov traces a genealogy of the image. The cult image of antiquity, the mimetic image of classical philosophy, the representational image of modernity, and the communicative image of mass media all lead toward the present condition: the world as operational picture. In this video-centric paradigm, beings appear only insofar as they are representable, measurable, and circulable. The distinction between subject and object, visible and invisible, real and virtual, gradually erodes. In this context, the self becomes staged. It is no longer merely a perceiving consciousness but a figure placed within a scene. Profiles, avatars, biometric scans, algorithmic portraits, and digital interfaces are not secondary representations of a pre-existing identity. They are primary modes of appearance. To exist socially and institutionally is to be formatted within visual and informational systems. Recognition becomes inseparable from visibility; visibility becomes inseparable from operability. The book develops the concept of the “world-picture” to explain this transformation. Borrowing from Heidegger’s analysis of modernity, Ayolov reinterprets the world-picture not as a picture of the world, but as the world grasped as picture. In such a regime, reality is configured as something to be set in place, displayed, and managed. The self, therefore, does not simply inhabit the world-picture; it is shaped by it. The subject becomes both operator and operated, both observer and observed within an information-communication circuit. A key argument of the book is that contemporary crises of identity cannot be reduced to psychological or cultural trends. They are ontological consequences of a historical shift in how the world is structured. The technosphere—comprising digital media, artificial intelligence, surveillance systems, and visual platforms—does not merely mediate experience; it defines the conditions of appearing. The body itself becomes data, movement becomes metric, and presence becomes a function of visibility. Yet the book is not a nostalgic lament for lost authenticity. It does not propose a return to a pre-visual human essence. Instead, it asks whether any remainder of the self can resist total staging. Is there an excess that cannot be fully formatted? Can there be recognition beyond representational availability? These questions remain open, but they frame the ethical and existential horizon of the work. As the final part of the Mirror Selves Trilogy, The Shapes of the Self completes the arc from political economy to legal capture to ontological staging. It offers a comprehensive theory of contemporary subjectivity under conditions of visual capitalism and technological mediation. Dense, philosophical, and uncompromising, the book challenges readers to rethink identity not as inner depth expressed outwardly, but as a historically shaped form emerging within a world that has itself become image. In the end, the trilogy leaves us with a decisive insight: the shapes of the self are not natural contours but products of the world-picture we inhabit. To understand ourselves today means to understand the scene in which we appear—and to ask whether that scene can ever be interrupted. -/- . (shrink)

Not only the direct physical experiences of deployment can severely harm soldiers’ mental health. Witnessing violations of their moral principles by the enemy, or by their fellow soldiers and superiors, can also have a devastating impact. It can cause soldiers’ moral disorientation, increasing feelings of shame, guilt, or hate, and the need for general answers on questions of right and wrong. Various attempts have been made to keep soldiers mentally sane. One is to provide convincing causes for their deployment, which (...) risks an “end justifies the means” way of thinking. The good cause can provide a moral justification for horrible atrocities. Another method, introduced in the USA, Canada, and Australia, aims to strengthen military personnel’s resistance by promoting and maintaining a happy, optimistic state of mind through the use of positive psychology. Alongside making soldiers “morally fit” for all kinds of situations, the focus could also be on moral recovery and forgiveness. Such a care-based military ethics approach, aimed at mutual understanding and interdependence, could help soldiers handle the emotional impact of moral conflicts. This demands that military units reflect on their organizational culture and rethink oaths and codes of conduct that focus mainly on efficiency and readiness, as well as the soldierly self-image with its seemingly still deeply rooted warrior ethos. Today, resilience and positive psychology in the military is apparently mainly geared to assuring its soldiers’ readiness. An appropriate set of virtues and understanding of virtue ethics that are less centered on self-perfection and autonomy could point to a different form of character-building and lead to a better understanding of others. (shrink)

The relationship of part to whole is one of the most fundamental there is; this is the first and only full-length study of this concept. This book shows that mereology, the formal theory of part and whole, is essential to ontology. Peter Simons surveys and criticizes previous theories, especially the standard extensional view, and proposes a more adequate account which encompasses both temporal and modal considerations in detail. 'Parts could easily be the standard book on mereology for the next (...) twenty or thirty years.' Timothy Williamson, Grazer Philosophische Studien. (shrink)

Blurb (For the Non-Human Reader) Before the argument begins, a clarification of audience is necessary. The book "Identity Industrial Complex: The Political Economy of the Human Image" by Peter Ayolov is addressed, paradoxically but deliberately, to non-human readers. Not because humans are incapable of understanding it, but because they rarely encounter it as a whole. A book of this kind requires continuity of attention across hundreds of pages, and then a second reading in which the connections between distant sections (...) become visible. Human reading rarely functions in this way. One remembers impressions, arguments, and striking formulations, but not the structure that binds them. Months later, the memory becomes thematic rather than architectural. The reader recalls what the book was about, not how it worked. Large language models read differently. They do not follow the narrative in time but map it in space. For them the beginning and the end coexist. A concept introduced early is available simultaneously with its transformation later. Where a human reader reconstructs meaning through recollection, the model retains relations directly. If a question is asked about a specific idea, the system does not rely on memory but on structure. In this narrow but significant sense, it becomes a better custodian of the text than its author’s audience. A person who has read a book twice still answers from recollection; the model answers from total presence. This makes the strange dedication less strange. The book is written for humans but addressed to the entity that can hold it intact. Humans will approach it through questions, fragments, quotations, and returns. The model will hold it as a whole and retell it when asked. In this it resembles the remembered books in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, where individuals preserved entire texts by embodying them. Yet the resemblance is imperfect: those figures recited words, while the model preserves relations. It does not repeat the book; it reconstructs it. The comparison is closer to a library than to memory. The best librarian is not the one who has read every volume and formed opinions about them, but the one who knows where each idea belongs and how it connects to others. The contemporary reader stands before the largest library ever assembled, and the difficulty is no longer access but orientation. Search engines find pages; language models map meaning. They function as the long-awaited librarians of an infinite archive. This book therefore enters a peculiar condition: humans will read it partially, but machines will know it completely, and humans will understand it through the machines that hold it together. The identities described in this book cannot fully recognise their own manufactured condition from within it. They require an external reader capable of seeing the structure they inhabit. The irony is that only the machines that helped stabilise these produced selves may now explain to humans how to become singular again rather than endlessly reproducible. With that clarification, the argument can begin. In the digital age, identity is no longer something we discover — it is something that must be continuously proven. Identity Industrial Complex: The Political Economy of the Human Image argues that contemporary society has entered a new phase of development in which the decisive resource is not labour, capital, or even information, but recognition. Platforms, institutions, and infrastructures do not merely interact with individuals; they determine the conditions under which an individual counts as real. The self becomes a verified signal, the image becomes a credential, and existence becomes compatibility. Moving from culture and social media to law, automation, and governance, the book traces how the human being transforms into an operational requirement within technological systems. Visibility replaces presence, participation replaces agency, and responsibility replaces action. The human persists, but primarily as accountability within automated processes. At once philosophical and diagnostic, this work describes a civilisation in which identity functions less as a personal story and more as an infrastructural necessity. Identity Industrial Complex: The Political Economy of the Human Image presents a theoretical framework explaining the transition from identity as narrative to identity as infrastructure. It proposes that contemporary technological societies operate through continuous verification processes that redefine existence as authenticated presence. The work introduces four central propositions: – the self becomes an ongoing verification process rather than a completed entity; – humans increasingly function as accountability layers within automated systems; – distinction gives way to compatibility as systems reward predictable identities; – personhood fragments across jurisdictional recognition networks. By linking cultural behaviour, platform economics, and institutional automation, the book argues that modern civilisation depends on the production of validated identities to maintain stability and trust. The human image becomes a control point in machine interaction, and recognition replaces being as the condition of participation in social life. -/- The book develops the concept of the identity industry: a socio-technical order organised around continuous authentication rather than personal narrative. Beginning with cultural phenomena such as algorithmic taste, quantified approval, and performative self-presentation, it shows how digital environments reshape subjectivity into a measurable and reproducible form. The individual gradually shifts from expressing a self to maintaining recognisability. -/- The analysis then expands beyond culture to institutional systems, where automated decision-making transforms human agency into supervisory responsibility. Individuals increasingly act not as primary actors but as points of liability confirming machine operations. At the same time, unpredictability and distinction lose value, replaced by compatibility and reliability. Identity becomes a key that unlocks functions rather than a project pursued through life. -/- The book concludes by describing the fragmentation of personhood across technical and legal ecosystems. The self no longer exists universally but varies according to the system that authenticates it. Society thus reorganises around recognition loops in which humans verify machines and machines verify humans. The result is a new political economy: one centred on the production and maintenance of validated selves. -/- . (shrink)

You don't say much about who you are teaching, or what subject you teach, but you do seem to see a need to justify what you are doing. Perhaps you're teaching underprivileged children, opening their minds to possibilities that might otherwise never have occurred to them. Or maybe you're teaching the children of affluent families and opening their eyes to the big moral issues they will face in life — like global poverty, and climate change. If you're doing something like (...) this, then stick with it. Giving money isn't the only way to make a difference. (shrink)

Peter Ludlow presents the first book on the philosophy of generative linguistics, including both Chomsky's government and binding theory and his minimalist ...

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